– The Rangers defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-2, in overtime tonight at Madison Square Garden for their fifth win and the last six games, and are now 9-2-1 in their last 12 games.

– New York has posted a record of 38-14-5 (81 pts) on the season, including a 19-7-2 mark at home.

– Tonight’s win was the Rangers’ first against the Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden since a 7-4 victory on Nov. 23, 2009.

– New York increased their lead over Boston atop the Eastern Conference standings to nine points, and are now within three points of Detroit for first in the league overall.

– The Blueshirts’ 19-7-2 (40 pts) mark at MSG is their best start at home through 28 games since 1995-96 (19-3-6, 44 pts).

– The Rangers’ .711 win% through 57 games is the team’s best start in 39 years, when the 1972-73 Blueshirts began the season with a 38-14-5 record (.711 win%), and is tied as the second best start in franchise history.

– With the win, Head Coach John Tortorella registered his 132nd victory as Rangers’ head coach to move past Herb Brooks into sole possession of sixth place on the Rangers’ all-time coaching wins list.

Player Notes:

– Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves to improve to 28-11-4 overall, including a 14-6-2 mark at home. He is now 8-1-0 with a 1.20 GAA, .955 Sv% and three shutouts in his last nine games.

– Derek Stepan recorded the game-winning goal 22 seconds into overtime, and was credited with three takeaways in 20:29 of ice time to earn third star honors. He has now tallied seven points (two goals, five assists) in the last eight games. The goal was Stepan’s first career overtime game-winning goal.

– Brad Richards notched the game’s opening goal at 17:49 of the first period and registered five shots on goal in 20:56 of ice time. He has now tallied six points (two goals, four assists) in the last six games.

– Artem Anisimov tallied a goal and registered three shots on goal in 18:00 of ice time to earn second star honors. He has now recorded seven points (four goals, three assists) in the last eight games, and the Rangers improved to 16-2-2 when he tallies a point.

– Michael Del Zotto tallied two assists, including the primary assist on Stepan’s overtime, game-winning goal, was credited with three takeaways and posted a game-high, plus two rating in a team-high, 25:14 of ice time. He has now recorded nine points (two goals, seven assists) in the last 11 games, including six assists in the last six contests.

– Marian Gaborik registered an assist on Stepan’s overtime, game-winning goal, and recorded five shots on goal in 21:16 of ice time. The assist was Gaborik’s 50th point of the season, marking the seventh time in his 11-year career, and second time in three seasons as a Ranger, he has reached that plateau.

– Carl Hagelin tallied the primary assist on Richards’ first period goal and logged 19:09 of ice time. He has now recorded 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in the last 14 games.

– Dan Girardi recorded an assist and was credited with a game-high, four blocked shots in the contest. It is the 11th time this season Girardi has recorded four or more blocked shots in a game.

– John Mitchell registered an assist on Anisimov’s goal at 13:13 of the second period. Mitchell is now two games shy of 200 career NHL appearances.

– Ryan Callahan registered a game-high, six shots on goal, was credited with three hits and logged 22:34 of ice time to capture first star honors.

Post-Game Quotes:

– John Tortorella on tonight’s game…
“I thought we got underneath the hash marks and forechecked, kept the puck and developed some scoring chances. We played better territorially than we have the past couple of games and hopefully we can build off of it.”

– Ryan Callahan on tonight’s game…
“They’re a talented team, they’ve got a lot of skill up front. They came at us pretty hard. I thought Mason played well in net. Anything could happen any night in this league, and every team is good, so it was important for us to come in and take this seriously and I thought we did that. I think we wanted to focus on our start.”

– Marc Staal on tonight’s game…
“They have been playing some pretty good hockey. We knew coming in that they would be playing hard in the back-to-back. We wanted to come out with a good start like we did and I felt like we continued to play hard. We got in a little penalty trouble but other than that I felt like we did a pretty good job for 60 plus (minutes).”

– Michael Del Zotto on the game-winning goal…
“I put it out front to Step (Derek Stepan), it squeezed out to Gaby (Marian Gaborik) and he made a great play faking the shot and (Steve) Mason came all the way out. Step put himself in a great spot and I slid it over to him and it was an empty net. It was great puck movement.”

– The Rangers will return to action when they face-off against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at CONSOL Energy Center (7:00 p.m.), in an Atlantic Division match-up. The game will be televised live on MSG Network and can be heard on 1050 ESPN Radio.

On Sunday, in basketball, New York benefitted from a questionable result in basketball; while New York appeared to get a royal shafting in hockey.

First, one has to wonder if the NBA and the network(s) are “rooting” for the Knicks to win the division? Yesterday, in MSG, the Knicks were awarded 18 of the 35 foul shots taken in their game, nothing irregular there. However, Philly, in Minnesota was awarded just 10 friggin’ foul shots, to 23 awarded to Minny, in Minny’s one-point win. Philly whipped Minny decisively in every category on totals and percentage, except of course, in stepping to the line for freebies.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch house in Toronto, the Rangers and all NHL home teams, we have learned, are running a bogus clock. The NHL in Toronto is akin to the Federal Government in a EPA lawsuit against some jerk who chopped down a tree in his own back yard, in that we know the outcome, beforehand – his home and his bank account are forfeit.

It took at least a half-hour for the video “proof” that MDZ’s shot/goal was “late” going across the line. Really? Why could we not see that “proof” almost immediately? Lots of room for manipulation, there. But it doen’t matter i,f in Toronto, MDZ’s shot/goal was late or on time. What matters is that the NHL is running a three-card monte shell game, and Bettman is a politician first, an NBA guy, second, and NHL Commissioner, as an afterthought. Nothing about this league under Bettman suggests any kind of intelligence, integrity, consistency or propriety – NOTHING!

Heaven help the controlling powers that the New York NHL team should upstage the New York NBA team, and they appear to be seeing to it that that will not happen.